In 2019, Google will continue changing the way it reads, indexes, and presents content to travel shoppers.

Our team of SEO researchers at Leonardo are continuously learning and adapting the strategies they build for hotels based changing updates, trends, and requirements. Here are the top SEO trends in 2019 and some of the strategies your hotel website can implement to adapt.

High Quality Content

In the last few years, Google has made a greater effort to crack down on websites with low quality content that could be perceived as spam. In doing this, they rank websites with quality content that answers the question a user is looking for higher than those without.

Truly answering search queries is key. At Leonardo, our team of Storytellers work with each hotel to produce high quality, informative content that allows travel shoppers to understand each element of the hotel and area attractions.

It’s not enough to simply have over 300 words. To stay on top of this 2019 SEO trend, make sure your site:

Focuses on quality over quantity: don’t simply share a bulleted list of things to do, add explanations and your hotel’s unique point of view

Uses that quality to convince travel shoppers to book directly: demonstrate local knowledge, share rich information about your hotel, and tell your story!

Page Speed

Put yourself in a travel shoppers’ shoes: when you’re trying to make a purchase online and the website lags for an extended period of time, the likelihood of you clicking out of the website and browsing for something new is incredibly high. In addition to creating a poor user experience, a slow page speed will negatively impact your overall SEO ranking in 2019.

For hotels to stay on top of this 2019 SEO trend, make sure to focus on images. High quality images are crucial to the travel shopping experience. When evaluating your vanity website provider, the page load time is a key area to consider.

Security

A recent study found that 82% of respondents claimed they would leave a website if they saw a “not secure” warning.

Website security is a top ranking factor for Google as they crawl websites, even going so far as to rank any websites without an SSL certificate lower than ones that do. If your website is not secure, you will fall behind this key SEO ranking factor.

Voice Search

Voice search has been on the come up for a number of years, and 2019 is believed to be the year this particular style of search will become common practice. Voice search is used when people speak to their mobile or portable device to search for something on the web instead of typing in a query. This new style of search is changing the way businesses present their web content, as content writers begin to adjust to a more conversational tone for pages that will be optimized for voice search.

For hotels, a key factor for voice search is “near me” queries. This means optimizing your site for people searching for “hotels near me.” Google displays results based on Google My Business information, including your location, name, and reviews. To stay on top of this SEO trend in 2019, make sure your hotel’s full name and contact information are consistent on your site and on Google.

Mobile-First Indexing

Google’s mobile-first indexing algorithm means that the mobile version of your website will be the first thing the search engine looks at when crawling your website. After indexing your mobile website, Google will then begin to crawl the desktop version of your website.

This means that you may see your website ranking higher on a mobile device compared to its desktop counterpart if you have a responsive, mobile-friendly design. With the trend of mobile browsing only expected to grow in 2019, ensuring your website is optimized for a mobile device or tablet is crucial for SEO success.

As we head into 2019, we look forward to another year of dynamic innovations in the world of SEO.